Conveyor belts and conveyor systems are well known systems used for the transport of a variety of materials and products. Conveyor belts are designed and used in heavy materials transport applications such as coal mining, ore mining, cement manufacturing operations, and the like. In many such applications, conveyor belts are located in underground mines where access to long stretches of belt and conveyor components is severely limited. In some cases direct visual observation of large portions of the belt run may be practically impossible. As can be appreciated, unexpected belt failures in these limited access areas can be dangerous and can cause substantial production delays.
As a result, methods and systems have been developed to monitor the condition of conveyor belts in operation in an attempt to predict when failures may occur. If such predictions are accurate, the conveyor system can be stopped and the belt repaired at an accessible location within the mine. While current systems offer some degree of automated monitoring, there is still a need for a fully automated belt monitoring system that is capable of collecting a variety of sensor data indicative of belt condition, and of providing comprehensive information regarding the belt to a user. There is also a need for an automated system that can sense a dangerous or imminent failure condition and can automatically stop the conveyor so that catastrophic system failure does not occur. Such a system should be modular and scalable to adapt to various belt types, sensors, and mine control equipment used throughout the mining industry. Further, the system should easily integrate with existing mine observation and control systems.